I recently added this little wonder to my stable and find it a bit frustrating. I absolutely loved the yak-9 and the yak-9U Being able to kill someone on the other side of the cap is giggle making fun. While I realize I am a minority, maneuverability isn't every thing if you got it where it counts.

My problem lies in the fact that the su-9 just doesn't have the punch it needs to do the same things I could do in tier 6 and 7. So I need to relearn and reevaluate what I am doing with it. 1 how do I fly it correctly. 2 How should I outfit it. 3 Is tier 9 more of the same?

The Su-9 is a transitional plane between the Yak MRF's and the Aleksyev I-21 concepts. Most people ragequit the entire line at it because it just doesn't quite live up to the meme that is the Yak-9(U.)

The Su-9 requires a lot of thought into what you do and how the situation around you is unfolding, you're largely defenseless if you get caught sniping people with below-average maneuverability and piss-poor acceleration. You need predict how things will work ahead of time. You actually have the boost to try and work up enough speed to escape people, but you need to see them coming.

The terrible acceleration and energy retention plays very well into the Su-9 however due to how it works. Flying slower means you get more time on target, and you have the boost to try and chase people if they're running away; having enemies overshoot is also a fairly valid tactic since you decelerate like a champ and you have, like, 25KPH yellowband so you'll almost always be at max turning ability before stalling. The maneuvering is kinda weird, really funky but with practice you can use it to actually dogfight people like you could in the Yak MRF's just... don't try to only do horizontal and vertical turns, you really gotta know your combat maneuvers to get the edge on people. As long as you remain above stall you're pretty much turning at maximum effectiveness, and with you flying so slow it's hard for planes to turn tight enough to attack you.

The weaponry is similar to the Yak-9U, however now you get effectively the firepower of the Yak-15 to "back-up" your 45mm cannon. Remember to have separate firing groups because both the 45 and 23's will overheat mildly fast and due to both of them being effective in their own rights (the 23's are arguably a separate set of guns to tear people apart with, they're better than "just" a back-up armament) so it would be wasteful to let your 23's overheat while you're sniping or overheat your 45 while dogfighting people. Remember to fly slow though, because again, more time on target, more chances to nail people, harder for people to reach you (just remember to watch your six!)

The durability actually isn't half-bad on the Su-9, I actually put on a reinforced airframe to increase the mildly large healthpool. You can trade hits with enemy aircraft and even ram (though you're surprisingly lightweight, which means you'll sustain pretty heavy damage) and armor is decently plentiful it seems. Control surfaces are prone to crits but for me the engines and pilot are well protected and the jet fuel is kept inside the plane, unlike the Japanese where they're coated in it. Just remember that you're still very prone to getting 1-passed by people, a large healthpool does nothing for you if you're caught on extremely low energy (which you'll usually be at to try sniping people) and end up an easy target.

I would recommend:Equipment (factory): Gunsight (you're a sniper, need the guns to be laser-accurate,) Reinforced (improve your ability to trade blows and sustainability,) LPU (improving your rudder is very useful for tracking people, let alone the turn bonus)

Consumables: (this is the specialist set but copy it as much as possible with a factory plane) Extinguisher (may seem odd, but you can usually keep enough range or spray the 23's enough that pilot crits won't end you, and despite the fire resistance preventing extra damage/crits is important,) emergency control system (you're prone to control-surface crits, especially with LWF,) engine restarter (because you're going to be flying near-stall quite a bit, so losing engines can be deadly,) ammo of your choice, and ordinance consumable of your choice.

Pilot skills (specialist 7-point pilot): Usually I do a 5-point pilot for guiding people on how to use an aircraft, but in this case your first 5 points should be invested into MM2 (Marksman 2) ASAP. Your next 2 points is a toss-up between ADE (Aerodynamics Expert) and BT (Battle-Tested,) ADE will let you turn better and improve your controllability (because of the equipment build I listed) while BT will help offset the lack of a dressing kit (and the extra controllability while critted might just save you.)

Pilot skills (factory 7-point pilot): Normally I focus on just specialist status for pilot skills but there's actually a shift in what you might want to use when you have the plane in stock configuration. There's two different builds that worked out for me here: MM2 + BT and FR (Fire Resistance,) BT, with ABE (Aerobatics Expert) or Resilience. The first one is a pretty standard build and explained above, but the second build is quite whacky, with you focusing more on maneuverability or using your decently-sized healthpool to your advantage (50% faster cooling on your guns, more maneuverability, and stronger engines at the cost of 70% of your health is no joke when you can still take a few hits after activation.)

Apologies for this being such a huge post, but perhaps it might help you a bit in flying the Su-9.

Su-9 does not play like a pure sniper anymore. Yak 9 and Yak 9U rely on their single high caliber gun to deal damage and use the other guns to finish the kill. But in Su-9, the 45mm gun only provide about 1/3 (150 out of 150+140*2) of your total damage. In compensation, you have another two reliable 23mm guns with range of 800. You need to make use of them to play effectively.

About the pilot and equipment, double Marksman and gunsight are must have. They help you to max your probability to hit the target. For the other equipment slots, personally, I don't value speed and survivability equipment a lot. I use maneuverability build on most of my planes, including Su-9.

I know it is an unpopular opinion, but I consider speed equipment almost useless because most of them only improve cruise speed and acceleration without boost. But whenever you need your speed, you always press w. So the only thing that matters is speed and acceleration WITH boost, not without. Survivability is useless because the best way to survive is to kill everyone besides you as fast as possible, your survivability is maxed if all enemies are dead.